It's Got Me Again!

Frank Marsales gives us a little lively instrumental of "Get Happy" before we are introduced to some squeaking mice who like to come out to play after midnight has struck on their clock. They are in a music room with it's wind-up gramophone to which they all - and there are millions of them - dance. Then they have a go on the drum, the accordion, practise some military precision marching. One even has a go on the French horn though, and that's their mistake. It disturbs the cat outside in the rain! Still obliviously mucking about on the piano, their feline foe is figuring a way to get into that room! Job done, a late supper beckons - can the mice escape his claws? Luckily the cat's aim is pretty rubbish but it's still risky for one singing mouse whose friends must come to his rescue! Drumsticks, needles and even a blow torch - what chance has the poor moggy? It's quite a fun animation this with some characters amongst the mice - even one on a crutch, but the story isn't really up to much and the general cacophony doesn't really stand out. It's watchable, but you'll never remember it.

This is an early (1932) attempt to have a cartoon in which the animated figures react to music. In other words, all their movement, from individual steps to slapstick-type stuff, all coincides with the music. In the '40s several cartoons won awards for this sort of thing, ones that feature Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny.

This one wasn't advanced enough to have that cleverness and color that we saw in the next decade, but for a 1932 effort this is passable. Just don't expect to get any laughs out of it. It still has some entertainment value, however, and all these little miniature Mickey Mouse- lookalike mice are "cute."

The "story" is just a bunch of mice enjoying a record, jumping on top of the vinyl disc as it goes around on the record player. Later, some of them play the flute and jump up and down on the drums. The second half offers some humor as one of the little mice falls into a spittoon

I did think Al Jolson imitation near the end was pretty good. Also, instead of "That's all, folks," the ending was "So long, folks!"

I saw this on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three. It was one of the "From The Vault" features on disc two.

While the mice in this animated short don't act like Mickey, they sure look like him. Some say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...to me it just seems like a cheap attempt by Looney Tunes to ripoff the Mouse! Like the early Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animated shorts, this one was supervised by the (uggh) team of Harmon and Ising--whose cutesy style was really big during the 30s and early 40s. While popular at the time, today their cartoons for Merrie Melodies and MGM look, well, pretty dreadful. It isn't that the animation is so bad, but the stories are just so saccharine and lack any of the edge later cartoons would have. Fortunately, for a Harmon/Ising production, this is among the least cutesy of their cartoons. Now this isn't saying it's good, because it really isn't. I only gave this film a 5 because relative to other films of the day, it was pretty average--though significantly less interesting than a real Mickey Mouse cartoon of the day.

The film consists of a raspy cat trying to kill the poor mice and, naturally, the mice prevailing (I bet you didn't see THAT coming, huh?!). In addition, there is some singing at the end because I think Harmon/Ising were contractually obligated to irritate the audiences with these awful songs.

Of interest to film historians (after all, this film was somehow nominated for an Oscar) and masochistic film viewers who like painfully unfunny cartoons.

And it's a good one, well worth seeing for more than just historical interest and a worthy nomination. There have been much better Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons since, but 'It's Got Me Again' is a very good early effort.

'It's Got Me Again' is admittedly very light on plot, more an excuse really to string along gags and song and dance numbers (sounds like a bad thing, but it actually comes off better than it sounds), and a bit creaky occasionally like at the beginning. Other than that, there is nothing really bad about 'It's Got Me Again'.

The animation is very good (and agreed, somewhat Disney-like, unusual but interesting), very detailed, smooth, remarkably fluid from each frame and meticulous in design and detail, the black and white is also pleasing on the eye and avoids being primitive. The song and dance moments are fun and pleasant, especially the Al Jolson-esque one, with energetic and beautifully orchestrated incidental scoring, not exactly ones that will burn in the memory forever but they hardly bring the cartoon down at all.

While it's not hilarious, 'It's Got Me Again' has some fun and very clever gags. The Al Jolson moment is definitely great, but the highlight has to be the introduction of the cat. The mice are cute and amusing, but making more of an impression is the cat who is a great character. The voice acting is stellar.

Overall, the first Oscar-nominated Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon proves itself worthy of it. Not one of the best cartoons ever made, but holds up nicely. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This cartoon has the look and feel of a Disney cartoon rather than the typical Warner Brothers cartoon. The singing and dancing mice, their antics and the general layout and design of the cartoon remind you more of Disney than anything else, but Warner Brothers was in the process of developing their distinctive style and traces of it can be seen here. Very good cartoon with a fairly well-developed plot. Well worth your time to watch, it shows up on Cartoon Network's Late Night Black and White periodically.